


Waking

by perhapsaperson



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Crew as Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24226174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perhapsaperson/pseuds/perhapsaperson
Summary: The destiny crew wakes up after five years in stasis
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Waking

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Stargate fic exchange, for @dirtkilling on Tumblr. This was a lot of fun to write. I tried to include everyone in this one, I love this crew and they deserve good things.

Eli wanders through the quiet, empty halls of the Destiny.

It’s always been like this, sort of. Empty. The ship was built for a much larger crew than they had, and they’d always been so cautious with it. That came naturally, with something so alien. The dark halls, the interfaces with the unfamiliar symbols, even just the knowledge that they were living in open space. Nothing about it was comfortable. 

There were parts of the ship that remained unexplored to this day. Even now, after all this time, all you needed to craft the illusion that you were alone on this ship was to stray a little from the essential areas - the gate room and the command centre, with the occupied living quarters clustered around it. 

Somehow, though, it was very different from being on a ship that was empty. Eli remembered those two weeks after everyone else went into stasis. Alone, in these same halls, his life hanging in the balance. It was strange.

It was stranger still, remembering it now. To the outside world, it had been five years since the crew of the Destiny went into stasis. To them, it seemed like yesterday. 

They probably had it easier, Eli thought. Not that it wasn’t scary, going into stasis - there’d been a moment of complete panic, as the door closed on him. That it wouldn’t word, that he hadn’t fixed it properly, that he’d never wake up. But that was only a moment, and then there’d been nothing, nothing until he woke up to Rush and Young standing in front of his opening pod. Everything had gone by in the blink of an eye.

For everyone back home, though, it was five years, fully experienced, fully lived. Five years of not knowing what was happening, if their loved ones were okay, if they were even alive. He could hardly imagine.

Without meaning to, Eli finds himself at the observation deck. He’s not the only one, he notices.  
Camille glances up at him as he moves to sit next to her, flashing him a tight smile. He smiles back, probably half-hearted.

“Hey,” he says. 

“Eli,” she says. Her hands are tight on the edge of the bench, and there’s a tension in her shoulders.

Eli’s not surprised. Everyones nervous, now. They still don’t haven’t heard anything from Earth, anything about their loved ones. That was nearly the first thing they’d done - after making sure the ship was functional again, of course - contacting Earth.

Young and Rush went first. To report, officially, to the SGC. They’d send word to everyone’s families, he assumed, that they were back, that they were okay. Everyone would get to go home, to see them - eventually. It would be a at least a few days though, for most of them. It was making everyone nervous.

“Thinking about home?” Eli doesn’t need to ask, but he has nothing else to say.

She laughs weakly, which he counts as a win. “I was just -” she pauses. “Thinking. It’s been a while. Five years. I keep wondering. What they’re thinking. If they - if they gave up on us.”

She stares ahead, worried awash in shimmering lights form the drive.

“They knew it would be like this,” Eli offers softly. “Five years, no contact.” He’s not sure if it helps. It’s all he has, because truthfully, he has the same fear. 

He can’t help thinking about his mother, how bad things had gotten when he vanished for a few months. It was different this time, she’d assured of that before he went under. That didn’t make the knot in his chest go away.

“I know,” Camille says, quiet. She gives him a soft smile. He smiles back.

She understands. They’re all feeling the same thing, they all understand each other right now, maybe more than they ever have.

\- - - 

“The third planet looks nice,” Eli says, scrolling through the kino footage from the gates in-range of their current stop.

“Nice?” Rush asks, raising an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Yep,” Eli says cheerfully. “Nice, breathable atmosphere, comfortable temperatures, what looks like a water source.” That finally caught Rush’s interest, and he moved to glance at the console over Eli’s shoulder.

“A lot of vegetation too, so maybe food.” Lack of food was going to become a problem very soon, if they didn’t find a new source, and it was on everyone’s minds. Rush nods, looking as close to satisfied as he ever got.

“We should probably send a team, then,” he says. “Show the colonel.”

“Show me what?”

Eli and Rush both spin around to find Young standing in the doorway, curious. Rush rolls his eyes.

“Speak of the devil,” he mutters, and Young shoots him a half-hearted glare. “Eli’s found a promising planet.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly find it, I was just going through the kino data. But, here.” Eli steps aside, gesturing to the screen, which displays footage of a swift river surrounded by lush forest. 

Young nods curtly. “Looks good. I’ll put a team together.” 

“I was thinking,” Eli says, pausing as the others turn to him. “After reconnaissance, maybe we could, you know, we could all go.”

Young frowns. “All go?”

“Just, you know, let everyone visit. Spend some time off the ship. Unwind.” He pauses. “I mean, probably not everyone at once, we could probably take turns, so someone could stay on the ship -”

“Eli,” Young interrupts his rambling. “Good idea. I think everyone around here could use it.” He gives Eli a faint smile before leaving, and Eli finds himself smiling too.

Rush has already turned back to his own console. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this,” Eli adds. “We all need a break, even you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

\- - -

The crew, needless to say, appreciated Eli’s suggestion.

Emotions have been running high in the weeks since they’d woken from stasis. Everyone’s had a chance to use the stones by now, to visit home. Some of them had come back lighter, grinning, even crying with relief.

Eli visited his mother. She was okay, she was so happy to see him again. They hugged, and cried, she told him how much he missed him. He couldn’t have hoped for a better reunion.

Others hadn’t been so lucky. Some people, after they came back, got quiet, withdrawn. Sad. They didn’t want to talk about it, mostly.

There was tension in the air, and stress, anxiety, everything. There was a collective feeling that the walls were closing in.

As they stepped through the gate, together, it felt like a collective sigh of relief.

Eli breathes in deeply, inhaling fresh, non-recycled air for the first time in months - years, actually, considering the time he spent in stasis. It’s slightly cooler than the air in the ship, and crisp, with a touch of humidity. It carries a scent that’s vaguely familiar, but he can’t quite place. He smiles.

“Alright, let’s set up camp in that clearing there,” Matt says, directing the stream of people coming through the gate. “Set up a perimeter at the tree line.”

He pauses, looking around as everyone starts dropping off supplies in the clearing, setting up their equipment. “You’ve all got your tasks. Whenever you’re away from base camp, stay with your group. Visual range, people.”

With that, they begin to disperse. Eli’s group, tasked with finding food, trekked East of the campsite. Or, more accurately, the direction they’d decided to call East, based on the movement of the sun. The actual magnetic poles of the planet didn’t line up, for whatever than was worth.

They move through the trees, talking lightly, picking up any of the plants that initial recon deemed edible. They don’t have to stray far from the site, and by early evening, or what Eli deems to be early evening here, at least, they’re on their way back with more food than they’ve seen in weeks. 

They’re nearly to the campsite when Eli notices a small stream, just next to them. It probably flows into the river they’ve been taking water from. Eli can’t help it, it’s been so long since he’s seen running water that didn’t come out of a sink. He wanders over.

He stares at the water for a moment, entranced. Technically, it’s been years since I saw one, he thinks, thought the joke is already getting old. He slowly crouches down and sticks his hand into the stream, savouring the feeling of the cold water flowing over his fingers. He can’t help the laugh that escapes his lungs.

“You shouldn’t be touching that, you know.” Eli jumps to his feet. Chloe’s standing behind him, watching him with an amused half-smile.

Eli scoffs. “They tested the water.”

“Not this water. The river water.”

“It’s the same.”

“Do you know that for sure?” She raises her eyebrow in exaggerated skepticism.

“Fine, mom,” Eli rolls his eyes, stepping back from the river. “Are we -”

Eli yelps when cold water splashes against his face. He spins around, and Chloe is kneeling by the stream, laughing.

“Oh you hypocrite,” Eli, says, to which Chloe responds by laughing harder.

“Oh, that’s funny, it it?” Eli says, though he can barely contain his own laughter. “How about this?” He kicks some water in her direction, it washes against her boots.

They splash at each other like children. By the time they stop, his sides hurt from laughing, and his hands are cold, and their clothes are wet, but he doesn’t mind.

“We should probably - probably stop,” Chloe says through her laughter.

“I think that means I win,” he says.

“It does not, you baby,” she says, shoving him playfully.

“Hey, guys?” 

They look up and Matt’s there, watching the two of them with fond amusement.

“Come on, we should be getting back,” he says lightly. He puts a hand on Eli’s shoulder, the other on Chloe’s, guiding them down towards the clearing.

“Didn’t I way to stay with your groups?”

“Sorry,” Eli says, sheepish.

“We weren’t alone, though,” says Chloe. “And we’re practically in sight of the base camp.”

Matt rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling, really smiling, and Eli can’t remember seeing him smile since they came out of stasis. 

By the time they get back, the main group is working on starting a campfire. Off to one side, TJ, Camille and Greer are sorting through and cataloguing the plants they’ve collected, engaged in vigorous conversation. He parts ways with Matt and Chloe to join them.

“Where’ve you been? Wasting time?” Greer greets him with a playful shove. Then he frowns, looking Eli up and down. “Why are you wet?”

Eli shrugs innocently. “We had a water fight, by the stream. Me and Chloe.” TJ laughs, while Greer gives him an odd look.

“What?” Eli defends, grinning again. “We were just taking advantage of a rare opportunity. How often do we get a chance to do that?”

“He’s got a point,” Camille says. “Who knows, maybe one of these days we’ll land a nice tropical beach planet.”

“Well, it wouldn’t really be a beach planet, so much,” Eli says, dropping his bags down next to the others. “The gate would just be on a beach.”

“With our luck, it’ll probably be full of sea monsters or something,” TJ says.

Camille sighs. “You’re probably right, but we can dream.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for one next stop,” Eli says, giving them a quick smile before wandering off, back towards the main group.

“You better,” TJ calls after him, and he can almost hear the smile in her voice.

By the time the sun goes down, the campfire has grown into a massive bonfire, and everyone is gathered around it. Eli relishes the warmth on his face, the smell of smoke. He half listens to Chloe and TJ talking to his right, Matt and Camille on his left. Across the flames he watches Greer share a selection of local plants with Lisa while next to them, Volker and Brody unsubtly share a flask with Vanessa. Even Young and Rush managed to look content.

We’re gonna be okay, Eli thinks, surprising himself. They were in this together. They’d been through awful stuff that no one on earth could even have imagined, and yet here they were, seven years later. In that moment he had no doubt, they could survive anything this god-forsaken universe decided to throw at them.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I rewatched, so I wasn't 100% sure of all the character voices in the dialogue, but I did my best. Anyway, hope you like it!


End file.
